Looking for Blackfellas Point

Based on the award-winning book 'Looking for Blackfellas' Point' by Mark McKenna, this feature explores the history of settler Australia's relations with the Aboriginal people of South East NSW. It also asks why some stories from the past are forgotten, and even erased, while others perpetuate across generations, and why some stories that explain away the past then become regarded as history.

McKenna presents his history as European history told from a settler perpective, and explores the way European history of the settlement of Australia has aspects of denial and unresolved issues that handicap Australia's cultural and political development through to the present day.

Aboriginal leaders Ossie Cruse, Margaret Dixon, and John Dixon tell the story from the perspective and experiences of their people.

The writer Rodney Hall is also a contributor to this feature. Hall has twice won the Miles Franklin Award - first in 1982, for his novel 'Just Relations', and again in 1994, for 'The Grisly Wife'.

On the history of settlement Hall says, "If you don't know who you are and you start telling lies about where you came from or how you came to be here, then you're not going to be in good shape to deal with the future."

The experience of research and writing this history had a major impact on McKenna's work in political history and his views on a proposed Australian republic, which he outlined in a later publication 'This Country: A Reconciled Republic'.

This feature was first broadcast on Hindsight, Radio National, in 2005.